The invention relates to a dispenser device with a sealed closure for the contents of a receptacle, wherein the contents can be pressurized, or a pump employed to discharge the contents.
It is known that the dispenser device for the contents of a receptacle that is pressurized (or an "aerosol"), and likewise the dispenser device for a receptacle that has a pump, generally suffers from the drawback of not protecting from ambient air a residual volume of substance to be dispensed that remains in the valve or the dispenser after the device has been actuated. As a result, with some of the substances that are to be dispensed, drying or polymerization takes place, thereby clogging the valve, the pump, and/or the dispenser and making it unusable, so that the substance remaining in the receptacle cannot be dispensed. With certain substances, such as medicines or the like, the above drawback of known devices can also have the consequence of spoiling the quality and/or compromising the sterility of the residual substance that stagnates in contact with air in the valve, the pump, and/or the dispenser, such that even if the user takes the precaution of discarding the initial fraction on each expulsion, the substance in the receptacle has been in contact with a spoiled fraction and may be contaminated, thereby making it unsuitable for the use for which it is intended.
In an attempt to mitigate this drawback, proposals have already been made for top-closing aerosol valve devices, see for example U.S. Pat. No. 3,506,165 or French Patent 2,126,835. The latter document, in particular, discloses an aerosol dispenser valve in which a plug slidably mounted in a bore can be displaced by means of a push-button against the action of a spring so as to uncover an outlet opening for the substance contained in the aerosol. The presence of the spring and the fact that the plug is associated with a valve rod and with a lip seal mean that the assembly comprises too many individual parts, thereby increasing the cost of manufacture and of assembly for devices that must necessarily be cheap.
In addition, the valve of French Patent 2,126,835 is fitted directly onto receptacles under pressure. It is therefore unsuitable for fitting to a standard aerosol that already has a valve.
Consequently, the problem is to provide a device for dispensing the contents of a top-closing receptacle that is pressurized or that has a pump, the device being simpler in structure than known devices and being independent of the valve and/or the pump.